Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development …
59
After the launch of the reform and opening-up, China made a series of major
decisions concerning environmental protection, formulated many important policies
and laws, and proposed a strategy for simultaneously promoting economic growth,
urban and rural development, and environmental protection. China first had a dedicated national environmental governance authority in 1988 and upgraded it once
and again after that. In 1998, the Environmental Protection Bureau was reorganized into the State Environmental Protection Administration (a ministerial-level
institution) directly under the State Council in charge of environmental protection.
The Chinese government also internalized the UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) and formulated China’s Agenda 21, and then broke down national sustainable
development targets by sector.
Due to the strategy of prioritizing economic growth and the limited resources
and capabilities in various aspects, China’s environmental protection efforts mainly
focused on conventional pollution control and pollution prevention in key areas.
During this period, the Chinese government launched a project to reduce pollution
in “three rivers, three lakes, two control areas, one city and one sea” (i.e. the Haihe
River, the Huaihe River, the Liaohe River, the Taihu Lake, the Dianchi Lake, the
Chaohu Lake, the sulfur dioxide pollution control area, the acid rain control area,
the city of Beijing, and the Bohai Sea) and achieved remarkable results. China’s
environmental policies at this stage were oriented towards problems and challenges
encountered in reality, aiming primarily to reduce pollution and meet environmental
targets. However, due to the huge ecological debt accumulated over the past years
and the failure to get a grasp on the big picture, the country in general still faced
serious environmental problems.
3. Stage 3—scaling up environmental governance (1999–2012)
After 1999, China truly entered the stage of large-scale environmental infrastructure
construction and ecological restoration. With the significant increase of the country’s
economic strength, under the dual pressure of the 1998 Yangtze River flood and the
massive sandstorm in North China, the central government initiated a large-scale
ecological restoration project focusing on protecting natural forests and turning farmland back into forests and grasslands. The project built environmental infrastructure,
especially sewage treatment plants, in urban areas to pay the ecological debt, reduce
the environmental impact of economic growth, and lay the foundation for overall
environmental improvement.
At the same time, after China’s accession to the WTO, the rapid growth of manufacturing had brought about a huge increase in resource consumption and pollutant
emissions, especially carbon dioxide emissions, in the country. Buoyed by the sheer
size of China’s economy and population, China saw most of its environmental indicators rose rapidly to the top of the world, which not only attracted worldwide attention
but also put increasing pressure on pollutant emission reduction.
Another feature of the environmental policies in this stage was the guiding role of
advanced concepts, which was a result of Chinese people’s deepened understanding
of the relationship between the environment and development, the emergence of new
59
After the launch of the reform and opening-up, China made a series of major
decisions concerning environmental protection, formulated many important policies
and laws, and proposed a strategy for simultaneously promoting economic growth,
urban and rural development, and environmental protection. China first had a dedicated national environmental governance authority in 1988 and upgraded it once
and again after that. In 1998, the Environmental Protection Bureau was reorganized into the State Environmental Protection Administration (a ministerial-level
institution) directly under the State Council in charge of environmental protection.
The Chinese government also internalized the UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) and formulated China’s Agenda 21, and then broke down national sustainable
development targets by sector.
Due to the strategy of prioritizing economic growth and the limited resources
and capabilities in various aspects, China’s environmental protection efforts mainly
focused on conventional pollution control and pollution prevention in key areas.
During this period, the Chinese government launched a project to reduce pollution
in “three rivers, three lakes, two control areas, one city and one sea” (i.e. the Haihe
River, the Huaihe River, the Liaohe River, the Taihu Lake, the Dianchi Lake, the
Chaohu Lake, the sulfur dioxide pollution control area, the acid rain control area,
the city of Beijing, and the Bohai Sea) and achieved remarkable results. China’s
environmental policies at this stage were oriented towards problems and challenges
encountered in reality, aiming primarily to reduce pollution and meet environmental
targets. However, due to the huge ecological debt accumulated over the past years
and the failure to get a grasp on the big picture, the country in general still faced
serious environmental problems.
3. Stage 3—scaling up environmental governance (1999–2012)
After 1999, China truly entered the stage of large-scale environmental infrastructure
construction and ecological restoration. With the significant increase of the country’s
economic strength, under the dual pressure of the 1998 Yangtze River flood and the
massive sandstorm in North China, the central government initiated a large-scale
ecological restoration project focusing on protecting natural forests and turning farmland back into forests and grasslands. The project built environmental infrastructure,
especially sewage treatment plants, in urban areas to pay the ecological debt, reduce
the environmental impact of economic growth, and lay the foundation for overall
environmental improvement.
At the same time, after China’s accession to the WTO, the rapid growth of manufacturing had brought about a huge increase in resource consumption and pollutant
emissions, especially carbon dioxide emissions, in the country. Buoyed by the sheer
size of China’s economy and population, China saw most of its environmental indicators rose rapidly to the top of the world, which not only attracted worldwide attention
but also put increasing pressure on pollutant emission reduction.
Another feature of the environmental policies in this stage was the guiding role of
advanced concepts, which was a result of Chinese people’s deepened understanding
of the relationship between the environment and development, the emergence of new